There's another weird lifelong phobia that I've never really been able to shake off; that is a phobia about a certain type of lawnmower that my parents had when I was very little.

First of all, I feel as though I can't even say nor type the brand name of said mower (especially as I fear that others might say 'Oh, I've got one of those mowers and it's brilliant, etc'), but here's a description of it that might give some clues.

It was of the electric cylinder (aka reel) type, had a pale blue-coloured body and had a single 'beam' handle with the grip-switch that activated the motor at the top (that I strangely used to call an 'Easter'), a horrible looking rear roller that I also strangely used to call a 'volcano' (pronounced 'vole-cayno').

I hated all the lettering fonts on it, including the one that the mower's main brand name was written in on that particular model (which was an ugly looking square-shaped uppercase bold font, which obviously disturbed me as it didn't look 'normal', plus worst of all was the horrible excruciating high-pitched whining sound it used to emit while in operation. All used to make me imagine and hallucinate horrible smells as well.

As it happened, my parents didn't really like using said mower either and my dad said it was often awkward to steer (especially being single-handed), wasn't quite man enough to cut longer grass and often had a tendency to break down in such situations. However, by the time I was about 4, my parents eventually discovered Flymo lawnmowers and abruptly switched to those instead from then onwards, and my dad then took our horrible old pale blue cylinder mower to the local tip, and I remember thinking 'Hurrah'!

I don't think that particular lawnmower brand even exists anymore, thank God, but I remember some neighbours over the road from us (at our current address) had a later version of that mower model for donkeys years (in green with proper handlebars, and the brand logo in a different font) and I still hated seeing and hearing said mower whenever they used it but they moved away in 2018 and those who have lived there since have a Flymo, of which mowers have never bothered me, including the sound.

All dead bizarre, I know.